Kieran pondered the small pills rolling around in his palm. They represented the very last of the hard-core painkillers he’d been taking for the better part of a month. He’d done plenty of research about them while recovering from the career-ending leg injury. His shoulder sent a bolt of pain through his neck and into his skull at that moment, as if in response to the sight of imminent, pill-induced relief. But something in him resisted how much he needed this dose.
“Son, take the dang medication,” his father growled, holding out a glass of water and a cracker. Kieran had to have something in his stomach when he took them; he’d learned that lesson the hard way.
“I’m fine.” He snagged a monstrously huge, over-the-counter bottle of generic acetaminophen instead, marveling at how heavy it was. His mother loved buying things like painkillers, peanut butter, paper towels, and soup in the gigantic multi-packs at the local warehouse-sized shopping club.
“But it’s the convenience, Anton,” she’d insist, tucking her latest oversized box of Cheerios or Quaker oats into the already overstuffed pantry.
“No, it’s that you like wanderin’ through that place, figurin’ out how much you’ll piss me off when you drag home a thousand pounds of whatever else we don’t need,” he’d mutter before she’d shoot him a sweet smile that made him shake his head, and mutter about evil women.
“Maybe, but that’s my role in life last I checked. And I take that sort of responsibility seriously,” was her typical reply to that.
Kieran dumped three of the less potent tablets out and swallowed them with a glass of water while staring out the kitchen window onto the distressingly familiar view.
“I gotta go home,” he said, keeping his gaze trained out onto the yard.
“Good luck convincing your mama of that.”
“I know. I need your help with it.”
Anton chuckled and slapped his sore shoulder, making him wince. “You are how old now, Francis? And you still operate under the assumption that I can convince that woman of anything she doesn’t wish to be convinced of?” Shaking his head, he reached into the fridge for a beer. Kieran looked at it, his mouth watering, attempting not to grab one and drink it in two swallows.
“The insurance shark showed his face here yesterday.” Anton popped the cap and took a long, tempting drink. “Left you this.” An envelope materialized out of the kitchen junk drawer.
Relief coated his nerve endings. It sure did help that he’d graduated high school with the police investigator at the scene of his accident. He’d passed out before the ambulance arrived and had not given permission to conduct a blood-alcohol-level test so he’d dodged that bullet. His buddy at the insurance company had pushed his claim through to the best of his ability.
When he read the amount on the check, he had to do a double take before realizing that not only had he driven his beloved Mustang into the damn pond, he’d only be getting a portion of its value because of the suspicious circumstances that his buddy apparently had been unable to keep out of the accident report.
“Shit,” he said under his breath, ever mindful of Lindsay’s sharp ears as he crumpled the letter. He should have known better. Nothing ever worked out for him.
“Problem?” his father asked, sipping and watching him.
“No, no problem. Other than I gotta find a new job, I’m behind on rent, have no car and no hopes of buying one, and lost the woman I loved.”
“Eh, she’s a bitch anyway. Come on, let’s listen to the ball game out on the patio.”
Staring at Anton’s retreating back, Kieran felt shock, dismay, and a twinge of relief at the thought of baseball, the pool, the sun, and not thinking about anything for a few hours.
God, what I wouldn’t give for a beer.
Shaking his head, he followed Anton through the living room and down to the basement. His mother sat reading a book under the shade of an umbrella, a glass of iced tea at her elbow. She accepted her husband’s kiss to her cheek then patted the seat next to her.
“Son, come over here a minute.”
Unwilling to be on the business end of a Lindsay Love lecture, Kieran paused until his father elbowed him forward. She marked a place in the latest in her long line of self-declared trashy novels and set it on the table next to the glass.
“I need your advice,” she said, surprising him. Trying to ignore the way his neck ached and his shoulder continued to throb despite the wimpy painkillers, he scoffed.
“I’m guessing I’m the last one of us equipped to give advice.”
“Don’t be silly.” She smacked his knee. “You’re still you. You’ve had a run of bum luck to be sure but you’ll pull out of it. So, listen,” she continued before he could burrow deeper into his self-pity hole. “I’m worried about your brother.”